(from NEA.gov)
Decades ago Time magazine called Ned Rorem (born 1923) â€œthe world's best composer of art songsâ€ and few have challenged that judgment since. Though he has written exceptionally fine orchestral music (his suite Air Music won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for music), his songs and choral pieces seem destined to remain his best-known legacy, in part because they are so performer-friendly, but most importantly because audiences find them full of striking and beautiful ideas.

From 1949 to 1958 he lived in France, composing and writing his diaries. Uniquely, Rorem early on became just as famous for his literary efforts - which now total 14 books of music criticism, lectures, and his frank personal diaries - as for his music. His inner life has thus become perhaps the most public of any composer in history.